Bob and Weave

Alone

60 Alone To escape the three-lead electricguitar band and the blur of bodies dancing under bad lights, I staggered through the door propped open with a sawhorse into the night air that dried the sweat on my face. Between parked cars, two men poured whiskey into themselves, laughter gurgling up through the neck and into the glass bubble above their heads. I turned the corner on humming neon and slumped against the dark wall, cinder-block cool against my back, the grinning grills of a line of cars still ticking like dying clocks. An arm’s length away fragments of a woman caught the light of passing cars, shoulder-length hair a black cape around her face. She sighed a stream of smoke into the air and extended her hand with a pack of cigarettes as sudden and bright before me as the head of a snake. “Thanks, but I don’t smoke,” I said. 61 I wanted to reach across that space and touch her hair or say something to make her laugh knowingly and nod. Instead, I leaned back against the blocks, let my eyes rest on the one star strong enough to show above the dark heads of maples across the street. We sat beside each other for half an hour before she stood and dusted off her jeans, her tired face flashing neon red as she rounded the corner. I wanted to say, “I’ll take that cigarette now,” wanted to draw that first smoke into my lungs. I ran back into the heat and noise, but never could be sure which one she was. I stayed until they closed, drank one beer after another, and watched every woman walk through that door with a man, or with her friends, or alone. Later, far away from that place, the air was cool, the sky clear, and all the stars visible. ...